Lauren Hertel, scholar and international trainer of College of Journalism and Communications University of Florida, was quite true when she response on the issue of the future of mass media. “It is not about what (kind of) media will survive, but it is more on what company will survive.” This strong statement was made during the discussion with the participants of the Institute on Journalism and Media at Gainesville campus July 11, 2008.
The media convergence has been bringing lots of debates regarding the future of mass media. Radio owners and professionals will be amazed to figure out that there is a technology for visual radio. A large radio network in USA plans to follow its European and Asian counterparts using the cutting-edge technology of integrating voices, texts, and visual graphics. At the same time, newspaper industry has been struggling in adjusting its products to online media. The print reporters are asked to enrich their capability from writing skills into videography skills. TV reporters, anchors, and producers are putting their efforts to grab young viewers via webcasting. This reality is triggering the ‘old’ question about the future of mass media industry.
Since uncertainty is very human, can we just ignore what so called idealism and simply serving whatever mass media audiences need and want? Can we just simply accept Mindy McAdams, University of Florida, for saying “objectivity is an ideal concept, but not easy to do it” ?
This new trend will definitely be changing the patterns and styles of competition within mass media industry. Think to ponder: what is the ‘face’ of future media?
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Hmmm.. I think the future media will have many surprising faces. But, the media owners and professionals have to think about one strong positioning face for their media that is recognized by the public audience. For example, Indonesian people prefer to watch the news at Metro TV to watch DetikTV at Detik.com. But, Indonesian people prefer to read the online news from Detik.com to read from kompas.com. That’s why media owners have to think about their media positioning.